Enshrouded Review

Enshrouded is another survival game we decided to try as we seemed to be on a survival game kick. This one had a more traditional feel to the survival game. With a twist of areas of the world that the environment could kill you, along with creatures
that had been changed by the environment.

The premise of the story is to play a flame born, which is an individual who was changed to be able to survive sometime in the shroud and find a way to reclaim the world from the shroud.

This one was a bit more challenging to navigate. There were few directions to follow as it related to the story until you figured out what was the story and what was extra stuff to do that really had nothing to do with the story.  The initial story lid youto a spot to build a base, but it was really close to your initial spawn point.

Reading was important if you wanted to properly progress through the quests that related to the main story. Often the instructions clearly indicated where to go and what to do. Which  we found challenging as the information in the quest title wasn’t always clear or the location wouldn’t populate on the map.

The difficulty of certain quests made the game challenging and fun. Though there were times when things seemed too hard or that we weren’t quite the right level to do the tasks required to complete the quest. What we found out later was that there was a large gap in difficulty between some of the main story quests and the level that you seemed ready for them.

We also found out that red shroud hurts a lot, to the point of dead fast. This also created barriers in story progression, which allowed you to catch up in experience and strength to be able to accomplish the missions. This was about when we realized what some of the side quests allowed us to do and were leading to computing a story chapter.

One of the biggest challenges for quests was that if it was a pickup or open box, both individuals in the group could not get credit at the same time. This means that if I completed the quest by opening a chest, someone else in my group did not get the same completion at the same time. they would have to come back later to complete the same quest.

That became a bit frustrating as the quests didn’t move out of your log when you expected them to when they were thought to be completed.  Being this is a survival game, I might be missing something in the design that makes it more geared towards solo players rather than groups.

The building component of the survival game was interesting and also frustrating until you realized that there were two modes, one that snapped to a grid and one that didn’t.  The one that doesn’t snap to the grid makes building much easier and move adaptable. However, snapping to a grid certainly keeps things square.

There are lots of building materials. However, you need to collect base materials to make many of the blocks. Sometimes, it takes multiple materials to create a block.  Most materials are relatively easy to obtain, but having gardens and other ways to collect materials is important to making it easier. Resource management is a real challenge if you are doing a lot of building.

We were still playing when the Hallowed Halls came online.  We were already maximum level at that time so the first two were more easily finished. The third one was a bit more challenging.  The last one proved to be exceptionally challenging. Especially the last stage before the end boss.

I can say that I got extremely lucky in being able to traverse the longest gliding component I have ever experienced in a game.  Unfortunately, I think it may have only been because I put a bunch of points in stamina.

The Hallowed Halls were definitely fun and provided an interesting challenge. We very much enjoyed the extra challenge and unique materials that the dungeons provided. We were, however, nearing the end of our playtime in Enshrouded. So, we didn’t fully explore all of the new things that were available from the new companion you gained in Hallowed Halls.

The game overall was entertaining, and once we reached maximum level, we did a lot of building. Creating two large bases that we will hopefully go back to at some point as survival games are always fun to go back to and continue a project or start a new one.